You want a financial advisor with experience in more than just one financial area, like investments. And you want a financial advisor whose advice you can trust. But with so many financial professionals sounding like every other financial professional, how do you know which one to choose?

One straightforward solution is to look at the acronym that follows their name. If you see the letters CFP®, you can feel assured that they have undergone rigorous training to serve all your financial areas and must put your interest first.

Short for CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™, the CFP® designation is widely known for its stringent requirements in education, experience, and ethics and its emphasis on comprehensive financial planning. At Prosperity Planning, we believe CFP® certification is one of the most direct barometers for determining a financial planner’s approach to achieving your goals.

Founded in Kansas City, MO, in 2005, our wealth management firm serves pre-retirees, business owners, divorcees, and high-income women. And we serve them best by requiring our wealth advisors to attain the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ certification.

CFP® Certification Requirements

To attain the CFP® mark, a financial advisor must meet the rigorous requirements set by the CFP Board. According to the board, the “four E’s” of CFP® certification equip advisors to provide comprehensive advice to clients and help those clients achieve more confidence today and a more secure tomorrow.

The four E’s are:

1. Education: The candidate must pass the CFP Board’s comprehensive financial education coursework, which takes 12 to 18 months on average to complete.

2. Exam: After the candidate completes the coursework, they must pass the six-hour examination, testing their ability to apply their knowledge to real-life situations.

3. Experience: This requirement prepares a candidate for financial planning without supervision. Depending on the path the candidate takes, they must complete 4,000 or 6,000 hours of financial planning experience.

4. Ethics: The ethics requirement is fundamental to being a CFP® professional. CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ certificants must adhere to the CFP Board’s ethical standards. This includes always acting as a fiduciary to clients.

CFP® Professionals Have Comprehensive Training

If you just want someone to buy and sell stocks at your direction, you probably don’t need a CFP® professional. But if you want a detailed plan to achieve your financial and life goals, you may be well-served to partner with a CFP® professional.

CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ candidates are trained to view your finances in their entirety. Their education covers 70 topic areas across eight principal domains:

1. Professional conduct and regulation

2. General principles of financial planning

3. Risk management and insurance planning

4. Investment planning

5. Tax planning

6. Retirement savings and income planning

7. Estate planning

8. Psychology of financial planning

They top off their studies with the Capstone Course, in which they create and present a comprehensive financial plan.

Why is all this relevant? The decisions you make in one area of your financial life can impact many other areas, and you could feel the ramifications for decades to come. A trained professional, such as advisors with CFP® certification marks, can help uncover potential obstacles and opportunities and address them in a single, cohesive plan.

As your fiduciary, a CFP® professional will give you advice that puts your best interest first. This obligation to your best interest helps build trust in the advisor you’re working with and helps provide confidence that you’re on the path to prosperity.

Our Comprehensive Services

Our advisory team includes CFP® professionals and a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) committed to providing personal financial planning tailored to each client. We help achieve this through the Prosperity Planning Blueprint™, a structured process to uncover financial obstacles and opportunities.

The Prosperity Planning Blueprint™ is comprehensive and includes the following topics:

• Customized investment recommendations

• Tax analysis and planning

• College funding

• Health care and insurance planning

• Employee benefits review

• Advice on stock options and restricted stock

• Estate and beneficiary review

• Charitable giving strategies

• Additional services for business owners including exit strategies and calculations of business value

As part of our fiduciary commitment, we never earn commissions for the advice we give. Because we are a fee-only firm, you always know which services you are receiving and how much you are paying.

Want to Learn More About the CFP® Certification?

The CFP Board has resources for people seeking a CFP® professional on its Let’s Make a Plan website.

You’ll find general articles on the value of financial planning, how to set goals, and the times in life that call for a financial plan. You can learn more about the value a CFP® professional offers and what sets CFP® certificants apart from other financial planners.

If you’ve never worked with a financial advisor, you may find the list of 10 suggested questions a good starting point when you interview a potential advisor. 

Finally, you can use the Let’s Make a Plan website to search for area CFP® professionals and view the services they offer and other important information.

We also welcome answering any questions you may have about the CFP® designation.